Sagrera bounces back to win at Aragon and extend Eurocup-3 lead

Photo: Eurocup-3

MP Motorsport’s Javier Sagrera extended his Eurocup-3 points lead with victory in race two at Motorland Aragon.

Having both failed to finish in race one on Saturday after clashing with each other on lap one, Owen Tangavelou and team-mate Sagrera were battling each other again on Sunday morning but this time it was for race two pole.

Tangavelou prevailed, setting a 1m51.727s to clinch his third pole of the campaign by 0.175 seconds over team-mate Briuno del Pino, with points leader Sagrera and Campos Racing’s Christian Ho 0.222s behind in third and fourth.

MP’s Emmo Fittipaldi was 0.3s off pole in fifth, with Campos’s Valentin Kluss and Noah Lisle, Palou Motorsport’s Theodor Jensen, race one winner Jesse Carrasquedo and Sainteloc Racing’s Jose Garfias completing the top 10.

Single-seater returnees Hadrien David (Drivex School) and Pierre-Louis Chovet (Palou) were 12th and 25th, with Chovet stopping on track during the session. Having initially planned to make a return from injury, Sainteloc’s Finley Green was instead absent from proceedings.

There was pre-race drama as Chovet stalled on the formation lap and was collected by Global Racing Service’s Douwe Dedecker. Chovet got going again but then stopped at the side of the track, and the start was delayed as both cars were recovered.

There was another staller on the actual start, while MP’s Dario Cabanelas fell down the order and retired.

Del Pino ended lap one side-by-side with Tangavelou, and they continued to go wheel-to-wheel through the first corners of lap two. Del Pino then went off, and Sagrera swept by into the lead. Tangavelou dropped to fifth in the process, behind Ho and Fittipaldi, then the safety car was called out.

Carrasquedo had been spun around and hit lightly by David after, then Sainteloc’s Diego de la Torre had ploughed into the back of David’s car. He got back to the pits, along with team-mate George Zhuravskiy who also retired, while de la Torre’s vehicle had to be recovered.

The restart took place on lap six, and Sagrera weaved down the back straight to try to break the tow to his rivals. He could not escape del Pino, while behind them GRS’s Nikola Tsolov took sixth from Lisle arond the outside of the final chicane on lap eight.

Jensen cleared Lisle on lap 12 as Tsolov joined the group ahead, but then fell back behind him.

The order mostly went unchanged, bar Palou driver Luciano Morano retiring from 12th and GRS’s Isaac Barashi stopping on track on the penultimate lap, and Carrasqueo recovered to 11th.

Race results (14 laps)